Articles by Dick Benton

Dealing with naturally risk-averse and conservative IT policies becomes increasingly less desirable to consumers when compared to the types of enablement available to the adventurous as technology rapidly evolves. IT is left to languish unappreciated, a resource of last resort, with an insurmountable burden of legacy-induced maintenance, and no ...

The industry roils with definitions and explanations of cloud. These definitions come from product vendors cloud-washing their products, cloud providers positioning their cloud infrastructure, IT teams attempting to cloud-paint their efforts in virtualization, and even from consultants writing articles like this This article will examine the essenc...

The prudent CIO sees the need for a quantum level improvement in the way IT delivers services and resources. To survive, IT must rapidly regain competitive strength by emulating the key strengths of external cloud suppliers. The internal IT delivery model has to change from a bureaucratic process that can take days or weeks, to one that supports self-service and makes resources immediately available.

Cloud Thunder: The Biggest Bang for the Buck, Part 1 Cloud deployment and delivery architecture offers many opportunities to reduce cost and improve service levels, sometimes too many for the beleaguered IT team. So how can your IT team identify what cloud components might be considered early opportunities for your infrastructure?...

Cloud deployment and delivery architecture offers many opportunities to reduce costs and improve service levels -- sometimes too many for the beleaguered IT team. So how can your IT team identify what cloud components might be considered early opportunities for your infrastructure? Cloud deployment strategies provide on-demand services from a virtu...

Continued from Calculating Cloud ROI, Part 1 Funding Further Expansion and Making a Profit!...

As IT attempts to separate hype from reality, finding the real ROI in cloud adoption can prove elusive. Nonetheless, a demonstrable ROI must be developed as the basis and justification of a cloud transition plan. In this article, I will examine a method of valuing IT resources to build a case for cloud ROI. I will also dive into some related is...